


Perseverance

by ReoPlusOne



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Complete, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Verse, Post-Apocalypse, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 01:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3230897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReoPlusOne/pseuds/ReoPlusOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world as it was known has long ended, and from the ashes Fort Perseverance has risen as a safe stronghold for omegas to hide.  Alphas are banned, but when one of its occupants becomes pregnant, where can he turn?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Arthur was only a child, the dolphins appeared offshore. 

It used to be that the dolphins did not come as far north as England, something about the temperatures being too cold and the seas too moody to house them. Unlike his mother, Arthur had never known the world before it turned into disaster; the patchy, sickly looking grasslands that he called his home were apparently once cold, damp and green, but he could never think of them the way she had. 

Like a spiderweb, human civilization was quick to fall to pieces when disaster struck the most vulnerable parts. The hurricanes had come and torn the shores of western Europe asunder first; after that volcanoes boiled the seas and turned blue skies gray. Arthur’s mother once told him that she had gone into hiding then, her family shielding the young in an ancient underground bunker for ten years before they finally came back out. She spent her childhood wondering if the world outside would ever look the same again, and when she emerged she had her answer; it was hot, desolate and quiet. Most of the humans were gone, but what they had abandoned was there for the survivors to keep. 

She remembered that when the seas died a mountain of dead fish washed up on shore, surely appetizing to the humans and animals that had long stopped hoping for aid. They were a welcome meal for the starving stray dogs nearby, that was, until the first wave of dogs that ate them joined the mountain of carcasses. This was why we were cautious, his mother told him once. This was why we had to think before doing anything rash. But even that philosophy couldn’t save her; she had died suddenly and young, just like everyone else in their new era. Just like the dogs on the beach she, too, faded to dust.

Now it was the tiny remnants of those skeletons that poked Arthur’s toes and threatened to cut him as he slipped out of his clothes. They might have, if Arthur’s feet weren’t thick with callous and able to take the abuse. The water felt dangerously cold when he stepped in, but if he stopped to inhale the sea air and closed his eyes for a moment, he could wade out to his waist in no time with enough hot sun on his back to make it worthwhile. The swarming dorsal fins he had first spotted on the horizon when he arrived gradually came closer until he started recognizing faces.

Arthur had never known any dolphins before his pod had appeared, but he had often wondered if they had always been this way. Their eternal smiles hid their incredible aggression perfectly; despite Arthur’s first assumptions about them, he realized that they were essentially a species of entirely alphas when he saw them rip a calf from another pod to pieces. Regardless, he still came every week to see how they were all progressing. The world was a cruel place, and that cruelty did not stop at the water’s edge -- so long as they were happy to lazily drift around him in the shallows and occasionally let him hook a ride on their fins, Arthur was happy to be with them. Judging from their usual greeting habits of bashing his legs and shrieking their delight, they were happy to be with him too.

Arthur stood where he was and waiting for a barrage of snouts to hit him, but instead he only got the rush of rubbery smooth skin on his legs. They seemed to wave hello to him with their tails, smiling like always but for some reason reluctant to touch him beyond a brisk tap.

Though Arthur thought for a moment that he would probably live to regret it, he kneeled. His chin dipped down below the surface a little as the waves tossed him gently back and forth like a shirt on a clothesline. When his hand stayed where it was, open and exposed, the patriarch dolphin whom he’d named Domino rose to meet it. Though he would normally be the first to shove him over and squeak happily at Arthur’s furious rubbing to get the salt out of his eyes, here he sat and waited at arm’s length almost as if he was anxious to get close. Arthur, though he had hoped it wasn’t the case, knew only one thing that could make them act that way.

He swam for the beach, threw his clothes back on and, as the dolphins whistled after him, he took off for the road home.

\--

Arthur approached the castle, as always, with his hands all the way up. He got within a ten meters of the gate before Matthew, who never got called to guard duty but was there anyway, waved him in. He probably needed glasses, but such luxuries were impossible. Knowing this, Arthur thought, he should have been banned from the post. “Hey, Arthur. Welcome back! How are your dolphins?”

“Gentle, actually.” He muttered and held his bag close.

“That’s unusual,” Matthew said with a smile that lasted just a little too long.

“I know.” Arthur said, and left it at that.

Fort Perseverance had survived the apocalypse. It was a great and looming castle, young by the standards of the hills it sat upon but ancient in the face of the desperate omegas who had ended up flocking there for sanctuary. They had blocked the slumping holes in the walls and taken two vulnerable, nerve-wracking weeks to make a brand new gate out of wood and metal scraps. Arthur’s mother was there from the beginning. She had nearly been crushed by the rocks that now made the new walls; she had died from tetanus she got hammering their new gate together. Arthur pressed his hand to the sheet metal on the outside and let it slide across his palm as it shut. How dearly his mother had suffered to build this place… and it was all now to his benefit.

Without wasting another thought on reminiscing, he fled past the kitchen, up the stairs and into the clinic. For once, their doctor was alone with his books; Arthur felt almost bad that he would have to be the one to break the silence. An unintimidating and brisk man, Kiku was Arthur’s closest friend in the compound, but regardless, Arthur would take no chances and shut the door behind him quietly.

“Listen, I’m going to need your help with something.”

A long-suffering sigh. Kiku finally looked up from his medical journal. “Yes?”

“But I need you to keep it a secret.”

“Arthur, you know as well as I do that I have an oath to follow.”

“I need this as a favor to a friend. I’m not your patient right now.”

Kiku’s brown eyes focused on the door for a moment, then on Arthur as he leaned in and clutched his magazine to his chest. “I will do all that I can,” He said slowly.

“I need you to tell me if I’m pregnant.”


	2. Chapter 2

“You can’t be serious,” Kiku murmured.

“You said yourself that this could happen any time, that the pills --”

“The pills should still be effective. I have the most effective collection of medication for miles. Besides, with the radiation levels being what they are and your… penchant for swimming in the ocean, which I have warned you against --”

“It’s fine.”

“-- … Your odds of being even close to normal fertility are extremely low.”

“But what are the odds?”

“There are no proven statistics,” The doctor wrung his hands together; it was the first time he had ever seemed less than composed in front of Arthur. “But in Dunshire Keep, the rate seemed to be one in ten omegas.”

“One in ten… affected?”

“One in ten with normal fertility. All the others that I examined had, at the very least, spotty menstruation, warped fallopian tubes… any number of things can reduce your ability to get pregnant. In the rest of the world, I have heard that this can make the circumstances more desperate for towns trying to maintain a population, but here it is a blessing. It is because of that that I don’t believe you have any realistic chance.”

“It was the dolphins.” Arthur blurted. “Today, I went to see them, and they weren’t… normal.”

The doctor leaned back against his desk and breathed what seemed to be a sigh of relief. Arthur frowned. “They wouldn’t hit me, Kiku. You don’t understand, every day that I visit them -”

“You want me to risk panic in Fort Perseverance because you think your dolphins were acting strange?”

“The only time they don’t rough-house one another is if one of them is pregnant. They don’t want to hurt the baby, so they stay back.”

Although he still looked at Arthur with raised eyebrows, Kiku swiveled to his file cabinet and pulled out several papers. Arthur recognized his name at the top, and then it was his turn to be relieved. Kiku, as usual, was going to be professional; even about matters that he did not believe. 

“Your last heat was almost three months ago,” He murmured, “And I recall you were accompanied.”

“I was chosen in the raffle. You know, the tall, blond one with the glasses?” Kiku frowned at that; Arthur knew he always took his name out of the runnings, next to Ivan he was probably one of the only ones in the fort to do it. 

Arthur thought that if his friend was going to leave his name in only once in his whole life it would have been for that raffle; unlike many of their offerings he was young and handsome, if a little nervous about being kept prisoner in a fort filled with omegas. The omegas that desired him entered their names into a raffle and the winner got their wish when their heat came; they might have been a community of omegas, but they knew a few foolproof ways to keep their own morale up. Once the winner’s heat was over, the alpha was released outside the gate. 

“Did you miss a dose of medication before your heat?”

“No.”

Arthur did not appreciate the way his gaze stayed on him, as if waiting for a sign that he was lying. He countered it with a scowl, and Kiku, polite as he typically was, looked away. After a few more stagnant moments in the cold clinic air, the door swung open and banged against the stone wall. A childish giggle from the doorway sent a chill up Arthur’s spine.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Good morning, Captain.” Kiku stood respectfully, though Arthur stayed seated. He could not have stood even if he wanted to, as Ivan’s enormous hands landed on his shoulders and squeezed.

“Arthur! How is my favorite nephew?”

“Only nephew,” Arthur reminded him, “And not even really _that_ , technically.”

“Nonsense!” Though he was absolutely an omega, Ivan was larger than most alphas Arthur had seen, broad, muscled and with a belly -- yet somehow he had the sweetest voice, like pollen on the wind. But that only diminished his demeanor of sheer intimidation slightly. “Your mother, you know, she was a sister to me. More than my real sisters! I would have done anything for her, and now? I will do anything for you.”

“That’s probably going to come in handy,” Arthur glanced back at Kiku, whose face seemed to grow pale. “I’ve been nauseous these past few days, but Kiku here only has a little peppermint leaf left. I was just wondering how I would be able to convince him to let me have it.”

Ivan nodded immediately. “Anything for my nephew, Kiku. You know that!”

Silence. Kiku scrambled, as if struggling to process everything at once. Peppermint. Morning sickness. Was Ivan going to figure it out? Without wasting another moment he pulled out the last bottle of peppermint leaves and handed it to Arthur. “Just mix it into hot water in the morning.”

“Well, that’s all I needed, then. Thanks.” As Arthur stood and made for the door, Ivan grasped his arm.

“You know I don’t see you much any more,” He said gently. “Take care of yourself.”

“Of course,” Arthur nodded in return.

Every morning after that, Arthur woke up needing to vomit.


	3. Chapter 3

Another month dragged on as usual in the fort. Arthur conserved his peppermint leaf and cut his meals back to no avail; he was gaining weight like it was nothing. With a heaviness in his heart he remembered the alpha -- his alpha -- had been a broad, muscled fellow, difficult to drag back judging from Matthew’s complaints (though he didn’t thrash, most alphas didn’t once he recognized the direction they were being taken). 

If the baby was anything like its father, it was _big_. Arthur’s stomach churned.

He was grateful that everyone just assumed he was gaining weight from stress, or for winter, and he played along with whatever jokes were made about getting extra rations through his connections with the Captain.

Arthur felt the squirming inside him and, unsure if it was the child that was growing more and more obvious every day or just the usual nausea that he carried with him, drank his peppermint tea and watched without a word. Onstage stood an alpha who seemed almost too scrawny and frail to be considered as a partner. His ribs showed and his shoulders and neck were narrow, but despite his apparent youth his hair was a vivid white; his eyes shone red in the sunlight as he looked around and squinted. A line of interested omegas had already formed to enter their names in the raffle but most, it seemed, only cared for the novelty of his looks.

Kiku, who had been strolling along the rows of chairs trying to seem nonchalant, made a beeline for the seat next to Arthur the moment he thought the coast was clear.

“No one has noticed,” Arthur muttered. His gaze stayed firmly on the stage.

“No one has said anything, that does not mean they are not suspicious.”

Arthur sat still for a moment as he fought the urge to rub his belly into doing the same. “What will happen if they do find out? Has no one here ever gotten pregnant before?” The sheer number of alphas being captured, kept and released throughout the year meant that everyone could have at least one -- and _no one_ else in the history of the fort had suffered the consequences of that?

“You are the only one.”

“Does Ivan know?”

“I don’t think so. Regardless, you must carefully consider your next course of action. If you are almost halfway through the pregnancy now, it will only become more and more obvious. I will keep your medical records clean.”

“Thanks,” Arthur sipped his tea and sighed. He was grateful; Kiku made a lifestyle out of following the rules and to go behind Ivan’s back and lie was something Arthur would never have asked him to do. Regardless, the anxious shifting and gnawing in his body turned into deeper worry; he was lucky that Ivan was regularly being torn away by bureaucratic nonsense and couldn’t visit him any more, but he still couldn’t hide forever. And where was there to go other than home?

The selected omega huffed a few rows away as if he was annoyed. The order was shouted and at the top of the wall a single shot rang out to signal the celebration of a new match as well as warn those alphas who may dare to approach on their own, unwanted.

“Isn’t it normally three?” Kiku asked after a pause, and Arthur furrowed his brow.

“I.... think so.”

\--

Ivan paced. It seemed he had been pacing for hours even before Arthur came; the bottoms of his feet were dark and dirty and he was almost ready to pant, but his hands never unclasped from behind his back and his pace never slowed until he stopped. He had halted in front of where Arthur was seated and groaned like he was in pain. “Remove his shirt.”

“No, no, Ivan, _listen_ \--”

Like the shock of cold water poured over him, two sets of hands were there in an instant, tugging at his clothes. Arthur cried out as the last layer of his lie was peeled off and his ugly, swollen belly was in the open air for all to see. Ivan stared down at him with wide eyes and a scowl. He looked for one, two, three seconds, watching the stretch marks that Arthur couldn’t cover as if he hoped they might disappear. When they didn’t, he turned away. “What have you done?”

“Please, Ivan, just listen to me --”

“I defend a cage full of canaries.” Ivan began. He waited for Arthur to try his excuses again, but they stayed cold and frozen in his throat. He continued. “They entrust me with their safety, these beautiful, delicate… valuable canaries. I stockpile ammunition like the end of days is coming _again_ , I give the order to shoot anyone who does not approach with their hands up -- because I take my duties _seriously_. Because I cannot let them down. And now you have threatened to bring a cat inside.”

That sweet honey voice that Arthur had heard since he himself was in the womb now boomed like a fast approaching storm; Arthur’s hands shook as he clung to the chair he was bound to. His voice, too, wavered -- the same storm that had swooped in to protect him a thousand times now turned on him and intended to break him. What could he do but beg for whatever mercy might come? “If it is an alpha, it doesn’t have to be violent, or even -- we could raise it like an omega.”

“It is not how they are raised, it is how they _are_ , a cat raised by canaries is still a cat. You have never known a real alpha, Arthur. Your mother prayed you never would.” Silence. Ivan looked down at him again and bit his lip; it didn’t stop a tear from sliding down his cheek and onto the floor. He joined it and slumped in a heap with a hand over his face. “I promised her I would protect you. She saved my life, the least I could do was keep you from harm after she left us.”

Arthur bit his tongue as they were both assaulted; from two perspectives the same scene hit them without either of them welcoming it.

Arthur’s mother; Ivan’s dearest friend, with her eyes wide and her jaw locked writhed and then became stiff like a creature possessed by the devil on the floor. When others went to move her, Ivan made them leave and simply sat, waiting for her to go limp again. And when she did, though her eyes were empty and dark, he called Arthur in and had him sit, too.

Together they whispered to her how they would miss her, that they didn’t know how the future could possibly be bright without her in it. Arthur held her hand and begged her not to go and Ivan, silently, let him.

“She’s all I have,” Arthur sniffled, and his warm breath had hung in the cold night air as Ivan held him and squeezed.

“No, she isn’t.” He said, and meant it.

They met again. Arthur was still bound to the chair, Ivan was still on the floor looking up at him, but they had seen the same ghost for the thousandth time and come away no differently than before.

“You have to leave,” Ivan said, and his face soured as he tried not to cry and utterly failed. “I’m so sorry.”

The night they dug a hole for her together, Arthur wondered in his head what would happen after morning came. 

If the person he would become in 5 years wrote him a letter, what would it say? What great or terrible things awaited them, and was there any way to predict them?

“It will be alright,” Ivan had told him as the last shovelful of dirt was pat atop the grave and they walked home guided by starlight.

Never in a thousand years did he think the letter might have read:

_You are on your own._


	4. Chapter 4

So starlight had guided them home before, and that night it guided them away.  With his hands bound behind his back Arthur stumbled down the stairs and crossed under the gate his mother had made to keep him safe inside.  Ivan and two masked omegas armed to the teeth escorted him along the narrow, winding road that led out of the fort.  No one came to say goodbye, and though he wanted to, Arthur did not look back.  


Fort Perseverance had been built on the tallest hill of many and it rose above them all like a tidal wave.  It was closest to the rainclouds when they came so it thankfully stayed fertile.  But the land surrounding it did not fare so well; like many of the omegas who lived there, it struggled to support any kind of life.  In spite of this every spattering of trees, every daisy that poked out of the desolation was the proof that the land wanted to grow.  It wanted something beyond the sickly yellow grass that got torn up in the wind; it wanted to be lush again.

But that probably wouldn’t happen in any of their lifetimes.

Across the gleaming hills the sun rose to a dust storm brewing, and through what little light came early Arthur could only tell that at the fork south of the fort they turned right.  He had never so much as looked in this direction, where the breeze became a torrent and the air was cold even in sunlight.  Ivan led the way, carefully refraining from making a single sound.

The column of smoke that twirled up over the horizon after nearly an hour of walking made Arthur feel a little more daring.  “Where exactly are we going?”

“You are valuable so they will not harm you in any way.  Do not worry, Arthur -- my promise still stands.”

Arthur accepted that answer, but Ivan must have not found any peace with it because he continued.  “Your mother, you know… she was such a special omega.” Whether out of stubbornness or curiosity, Arthur did not reply.

“She never told you how we met, did she?” More silence, but Ivan had known the answer before he asked.  “A long time ago, I was captured.  This gang of alphas, back when there were more of them roaming around than there were cockroaches, they kept me.  I guess they had hoped that since I survived the first bomb blast aboveground I might be somehow… stronger.  They thought I could carry a pregnancy to term -- when that didn’t work, they said they would kill me.”

Both of the guards turned and looked as Ivan laughed his sing-songy child’s laugh.  “They didn’t know that I’ve never had a heat in my life.  It might have been the death of me, but your mum, she swooped in guns blazing and tried to help me.  She didn’t even know me.”

“The next thing we knew they raped her too.  They had spent all that time on me, hoping that it would work out, and then from one time, just _one_ time, she had you.”

To Arthur, it had never made sense how his mother could be so phobic of alphas and still be a _mother_ \-- it was something he always wanted to ask when she had warned him of the dangers of mixing with them.  Now he knew.  

Not that it was exactly comforting.

“The worst thing that had ever happened to her gave her the best thing.  Her words, not mine.”

“Right,” The first word Arthur said since they had left, and he said it under his breath.  

The looming figure that had first appeared on the horizon and crept up closer quickly grew details.  The fortress had thin windows with dozens of people peering out at them, yet not a single figure among them was the noticeable small one of a child.  Judging from Kiku’s words, there might not be any children in the fort at all -- but then, that’s probably why they were willing to pay a suitable price for him.

“It isn’t so much that we have a desperate need for the omegas now,” Some man of business twirling a bag filled with… _metal_ in his hand muttered as he stepped away from Arthur.  He had assessed that the belly was real and not stuffing meant to trick them inside, and that’s when he began to talk.  

At one point or another Arthur had realized that this pregnancy made him valuable.  But if it was valuable enough to fake, apparently -- that was a whole other story.  Maybe what Ivan had said about being treated well could be true, though Arthur paused for a moment to wonder what sort of alphas would buy an omega for the sake of their uterus.  “Still, people will pay one hell of a price to have a breeding omega in their settlement.  You know, for insurance.”

“Twelve thousand rifle bullets,” Ivan grabbed the gun from one of his masked guards and tossed it to the strange alpha.  “To fit this.”

“Make it ten.”

For the first time since he arrived, Arthur looked up, first at Ivan, then at the strange alpha.  “This was supposed to be a safe refuge.” Ivan wouldn’t look at him.

“Ten thousand, take it or leave it.”

“Fine,” Ivan shrugged.  “Load up your carts and return them with us tonight.” When that was acceptable in the alpha’s eyes, Ivan turned heel and left, not sparing Arthur a single glance.  The masked omegas Arthur still couldn’t identify followed in stride, only pausing for a moment to drop a small box in Arthur’s lap and hurry away.  His hands were still tightly bound, but the alpha who apparently owned him took the box and opened it.  “From a friend of yours?” He asked.

Inside, there were three bottles of peppermint leaves.  They fell to the floor and rolled out of sight as Arthur was pulled to his feet and ushered to the sales floor.

Ivan walked away to the melody of clinking bullets in his ears.  He had traded heartache for further security -- in some small way, he hoped Victoria was happy with him.  

As the rain came swiftly on the duststorm’s heels and fell like liquid iron, he thought, perhaps, that she was.  


“He’s beautiful,” Ivan remembered the day Arthur was born, a tiny helpless bundle in his best friend’s arms as they huddled in ruins not suitable to house wild foxes.  It was raining then, too -- truly a miserable day to bring a life into the world.

As he suckled, Victoria looked out at the distant hills and sighed.  “What happened to us can’t happen again.”

“Of course not, I have plenty of ammo.”

“It can’t happen to _anyone_ , Ivan.”

He sat contemplating the pounding of rain on stone for a moment as the healthiest baby Britain had seen in years stared up at him with a smile.  “What can we do?”

“We’ll make a paradise, a special safe place.  And we’ll build a wall to keep the alphas out for good.”

So they did.

Yet somehow they still failed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> USUK to start next chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur wobbled on his feet.  Nothing new, not since the second day. **  
**

For three days he had stayed there on his feet.  No food, little sleep, constant vigilance.  Three days of staring down alphas who held out their hands like they wanted to touch him ( _not_ going to happen so _piss off_ ), three days of watching them balk when they heard his price and sneering at their backsides as they left.  Continuing the human race wasn’t nearly as priceless as he had been led to believe.

At the end of the first day he had been completely ready to collapse.  But he had to _make it_ , make it to three so his owner would shut up, so the visitors would stop fucking _looking_ at him, and he had -- three days was officially marked as the sun finally rose, achingly slow.

So he finally did collapse.

The food they’d left in front of him hadn’t seemed appetizing since at least yesterday.  Not since the gruel they’d given him before the auction had he eaten anything, and it wasn’t hard for anyone to notice the whiteness of his face and the bags under his eyes.

It seemed that everywhere Arthur went needed something different; ammunition, animals, medicine… They were all willing to give him up for these things, and lots of them, until finally he reached a traveling merchant with nothing he needed but extra wealth.  They set up shop on a hill three days prior and he hadn’t left the spot he’d been tied to since.

People came and went, exchanging things for other things but never getting too close.  They speculated, they stared.  They saw how he shivered in the elements and spoke to his owner but never said a word to _him_.

Perhaps Ivan was right.  Perhaps home was the only place in the world where an omega was a human and not a commodity.  He closed his eyes and _remembered_ more than he _dreamed_ \-- it was important that he remind himself that his memories were real and not fantasy -- and all he remembered was home.

Arthur only awoke to the sound of speech.

“Yeah, it was that fort up on the hill out east.  By the coast?”

“With all the omegas in it, right?” His owner nodded.  “That place is better guarded than the gates of Hell itself, how did you get inside?”

“Didn’t have to, they sold him outright the moment he started showing.  No alphas allowed, and apparently a 50/50 chance is too much of a risk for them.  Their loss, my gain I suppose.  One sale will get my retirement wrapped up nicely.” The same story, same words.  The same hurt ached deep inside him at hearing his story told aloud, yet again.  The omega cast out by omegas.  The omega who was free a week ago but now sat in chains.

“Three days?”

Arthur closed his eyes again, hoping for another dose of sweet memories to wash over him.  Instead there were a few footsteps in his direction and the sound of crunching gravel grating in his ears.  Arthur didn’t look up, but assumed it was the strange man with the glasses (such an odd luxury to pick in this day and age) who had been talking his owner up.  He kneeled and paused for a moment, as if trying to decide what to do about the fact that Arthur wasn’t acknowledging his existence like a respectful omega _ought_ to.  Pissant.

“Hey there, you alright?” Arthur kept his eyes closed and grumbled.  He had been tired for three days, but it had taken its sweet time to hit him.  “You know, I understand you protesting all of this by not eating, but -- at a certain point you’re hurting your kid more than yourself, you know?” There was the hand, the one Arthur knew he should have been expecting any moment, running across the swell of his stomach as if the alpha expected it to be fake.  The little creature living inside him, though it was sluggish, turned over -- and the alpha recoiled faster than a gunshot, like he was suddenly afraid.

Arthur looked up; they caught eyes and in an instant he, too, was afraid.

It was the alpha from the _fort_ , the one who had shared his bed and bitten his neck and put a damnable child in him.  It was the alpha who stumbled away into the fields after their brief five days together and, of all things, turned to wave at him before he disappeared over the horizon.  

Arthur kicked him.

\--

All at once a tornado of talking and movement and nausea hit him.  Some price must have been paid for him, because when he woke he was sitting on the back of a cart with a warm robe that smelled of meat and alpha wrapped around his shoulders.  

For as long as they traveled they only got further west; Arthur remembered that he had wanted to come out here at some point in his life, but had always filed it away in his ‘someday’ bin.  Someday visit the west.  Someday start a family.  

Someday kick a stranger in the shin and then immediately pass out from the effort.

They stopped on top of a hill and the whole procession breathed a weary sigh.  In the entire line of people taking drinks from their canteens he never saw the alpha with the glasses; then again he never bothered to look ahead of his cart’s spot in line and he was nearly at the very back.  It didn’t matter, the man was unlikely to have any sort of kind words to say to him anyway and Arthur couldn’t even remember his name.  

He frowned as another omega from two carts down eyed him from under the brim of his hat; best to keep them at bay until they got to… wherever it was they were going.  Just like the alpha before, the omega approached him, without boundaries, and extended a hand with a canteen in it.  Arthur breathed for just a moment, hesitant, before he grabbed it and gulped.  


He hadn’t realized that it was the middle of the day and he had finished the entire canteen until it was gone.  The omega took it back as Arthur wrung his hands and muttered an apology under his breath, though that was met with laughter.  “Don’t worry, we’re almost home anyway.” 

The ox at the head of the line started to move and as they did, again his hands found the side of his own wagon -- funny, how standing on firm ground could make him nauseous, but the gentle side-to-side movement in the cart banished even a hint of sickness.  It felt like ocean waves carrying him somewhere safe.

Arthur wasn’t bound to anything any more, but then, it was the fact that there could be no safe settlement for miles that kept him from running.  The landscape suddenly dipped like a crater as they continued on, and at the bottom of the giant, grassy bowl was a village with short walls and green grass, welcoming them home with a gate they left wide open.  At either side, two omegas with rifles almost as big as Arthur himself stood at attention and saluted; he noted that the gates were held open with thick chains that had ropes of moss growing on them.  Strange...

The mostly stone shacks that dotted the sprawling green carpet gave way to open field and a long road with rows of trees on either side.  They were old, but then they had survived the end of the world; one of the women in their wagon train ran her hands along every trunk as they passed through, somehow reverent though it was just Spring and they were still shedding leaves.  

Sure enough, the road they were on outside of town did lead somewhere.  A building that was likely an impressive mansion in its time stood just as tall and proud as the trees that surrounded it.  As someone ushered Arthur inside he noticed the sticky stench of something and realized that they were _painting_ the exterior -- a brilliant white.

All at once a flurry of people came and organized into a queue as if they were made to do just that.  Each one swept up, wrapped in long furs and blankets, and fell to their knees before him.  Each one took his hand, grasped it like something precious, and kissed his knuckles.

Each one repeated the line like a mantra worth a hundred thousand bullets: “ _Welcome to Heroes’ Enclave, Your Majesty_.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Lord Alfred will see you now,” A curtsy, a bow.  If they thought he was a queen he might as well act the part, and that was why he slammed the door behind himself and made the single occupant of the enormous bannered room jump. **  
**

“Oh, it’s you, the one who kicked me.” That same man with the glasses greeted him with a gleaming smile.

Arthur sneered back.  “Do you want me to kick you _again_? Because I can.”

“Easy there princess.” Grabbing two handfuls of papers and straightening them into a pile did little to reduce the ridiculous clutter that covered the messiest desk Arthur had ever seen -- Lord Alfred didn’t seem to value paper much, even if it was the expertly pressed, perfectly white type he had in his hands.

“I’m beginning to think I should prefer Your Majesty, since that’s what everyone keeps calling me.”

“ _What?_ ” Alfred stumbled backwards, eyes wide.  He was as absolutely astonished as Arthur had been when he first arrived, though in typical alpha fashion he was utter crap at concealing it.  If Arthur was their queen, Alfred had to be their king, and as king he should at least have some idea of what was behind the mistake -- as well as the power to rectify it.  “Shit.  Oh, _shit_.” With a hand over his face Alfred fell more than sat in his desk chair and groaned like he was in pain.

Arthur was suddenly a little more sure that Alfred knew what was going on.

“It -- it was me.  I told them you were a queen.  Not, not _my_ queen but a queen back at your fort thing.”

Arthur actually threw his head back and laughed.  “There aren’t any queens in Fort Perseverance,” and even if there were, he would have still been a scribe.  Though the thought of Ivan in fine robes and a crown was certainly entertaining.  “Why the _hell_ would you tell them that?”

Alfred looked over Arthur’s shoulder at the door, checking carefully to see if it was closed.  He raised a hand to his face to bite his nails and frown into them.  “It was dumb.”

“Oh, clearly.” Arthur felt like a stern mother already, crossing his arms and being careful to rest the elbows on top of his belly -- regardless, it wasn’t the exhausted child within that he was more concerned with, but the ridiculous overgrown one that stood in front of him.

“It was just… embarrassing.  I was gone for a month, people here were scared I was dead, I couldn’t just -- tell them I was captured by omegas.  They’d laugh at me.”

Arthur sneered.  “You _were_ captured by omegas.  But what does me being a queen have to do with that?”

“Well, at least… I could tell them that I was the royal choice while I was there… ? Besides, what kind of omega wouldn’t want to be a queen?”

“The kind who is only a queen because some fucking _moron_ lied to his entire village.”

Alfred put up his hands as if in surrender.  “Look, look, just… roll with it, okay? I’ll do whatever you want.”

Arthur felt the fury rising on his tongue; it tasted righteous.  He wanted to spit at this bastard, this fake lord with uncalloused white palms who thought he could order him around -- yet he hesitated.  He was distinctly reminded of the growing human inside him, the little squirming creature that relied on him for everything and would continue to, even when it was no longer inside him.

And it couldn’t be that long until then.

What sort of life would that innocent little one receive if he left this place and tried to make it on his own? Arthur would be picked up instantly, not cared for when his labor came, tossed aside and forced to become pregnant the moment he was able, and where would that leave his baby?

Arthur distinctly remembered the omega in the line of carts, the ones at the gates, and as he bit back his furious words and tried to form new ones he almost felt disgusted with himself.  “What rights do your omegas have here?”

Alfred raised an eyebrow, confused.  Perhaps it never occurred to him that Arthur might still want to leave, but he understood his concern somehow.  Perhaps he wasn’t entirely incapable of empathy.  “Same as anyone.  They can fight in our militia and mate whoever they want, and -- what? Don’t look at me like that.  I’m not some prejudiced asshole just because I’m an alpha, you know.”

“I’ll keep your secret, on one condition.” Slowly, Alfred nodded.  “I want to live here.  I want a safe place to give birth, and I want those same rights you listed for my child, regardless of what they’re born as.”

As the alpha chuckled through that same beaming smile he remembered from those nights at the fort, Arthur could only think of how he had better stop before he punched it right off his face.  “Is that all? Sure, yeah.”

“Hm.” That would suffice.  Head held high, eyes forward, Arthur turned and left, greeted in the hallway with the same curtsy and bow he had met when he entered.

\--

After wandering for a moment or two, he was shown to his room ( _next door after Alfred’s_ , they noted with smiles, and he bit his cheek) and left alone to his devices.  That mostly seemed to involve staring up at the chandelier that hung from the ceiling and wondering exactly how secure it was up there.  (The answer was ‘probably not very’, but then it was dusted and polished…)

A rustling and mumbling chorus at the door turned chaotic as it grew louder and was followed by a stern “Francis you can’t go _in_ there --” and punctuated with the door slamming behind a somewhat broad, blond man.  Arthur narrowed his eyes and carefully inhaled: omega.  Though he looked a little tall to be one, he was nothing compared to Ivan.

"What can I do for you?" Arthur mumbled; he hadn't realized how tired he was until he sat on the bed and noticed how soft it was -- he was already craving a nap in it.

"I was going to ask you the same thing, Your Majesty." His back bent in that familiar bowing pose and Arthur scowled.

"Don't.  I've had enough of _that_ to last a lifetime."

Francis seemed like a bold fellow.  He followed Arthur's suit and took a seat on the edge of the bed; the frame was tall enough that even his feet dangled off the side.  "They must worship you back where you came from.  Every omega's wet dream, mm?"

Arthur snorted.  "I suppose."

“The way Alfred described your home… He made it sound so beautiful.  So luxurious.  And nothing but omegas?”

“Alphas have been banned since it was founded, yes.”

“Between you and I, that sounds like heaven,” Francis chuckled and sounded scandalous doing it.  “Alphas are such a pain.”

“Tell me about it,” Arthur rubbed a hand over his temples to ease the headache he felt brewing.  He might have said something else if his stomach, which was only a puppet of the baby after all, hadn't growled loud enough to echo off the walls. "... When is dinner being served?"

"For you? Any time.  Just say the word."

"Uh, the word."

Francis stood, trying to cover his mouth and hold in his laughter.  He was able to stop long enough for a brief sniff, and he nodded.  "Something... Meaty, I think? Would beef and potatoes be alright?"

Arthur did his best to conceal his drool.  Not exactly royal-like. "Yes, that would be excellent."

"Of course it would be, I thought it up.  À bien-tôt, Your Majesty." There was a brief moment where Arthur could see the nervous faces staring in from the hall, all hailing Francis' arrival with squirrel-like chatter.  The door shut, and Arthur was again alone with the chandelier.

How could you teach an omega to anticipate needs like an alpha? Certainly would have been useful back at the fort…  



	7. Chapter 7

Arthur got his snack in short order, but the rest of the castle had to be fed regardless -- and it wouldn’t make any sense for a foreign diplomat to be absent at such an event.  If he had known he would be seated immediately to Alfred’s right at the head of the room however, he would have thrown all manners to the wind and locked himself in his room.  In spite of this he was, eventually, glad that he was able to be there when the parade of gifts arrived. **  
**

“Your majesty, we are here to give this offering of apples and bless your mateship with our Lord Alfred.”

“Your majesty, we are here to give our blessing on your mateship… oh, and this puppy.  We hope he will serve you well.”

“Your majesty, how would such a venerated member of the royal family come to be cast out?”

The room fell silent.  “D-don’t get me wrong, we are thrilled to have you as our guest, I am only curious…”

Arthur looked at Alfred, who offered no answers.  He was good at smiling and exuding confidence when he needed to (perfect for being the vapid alpha leader that he was), but that seemed to be the limit of his skills.  Arthur heaved out a great and dramatic sigh as the crowd leaned in to hear him, enraptured.  “They wished for me to mate with another omega to keep my lineage pure, and when I refused, a pretender was granted my throne.  I was cast out.”

All at once it seemed that every person in the room sighed, whether with sympathy or with disgust he wasn’t sure -- until he was flooded with even more people flocking to see them up close.  

“Your majesty, you are so _brave_!”

“Your majesty, I cannot express to you how happy I am that you are with us --”

When the crowd finally dispersed, Arthur nibbled at his mashed potatoes as Alfred muttered ‘thank you’ under his breath.

He wouldn't grant him a reply until after dinner, on the way back to their respective chambers.  "If you think I am going to share a bed with you, or -- God forbid, bear another child, you are a conceited pile of --"

"Woah, woah.” Again, his hands went up.  Not that it would help him any.  “Now you don't have to do anything, the mateship thing, they're just... Happy I've made an heir and stuff.  We have a lot of omegas in this town, but only a couple can have kids.  I guess you're just lucky."

"Lucky, right.  I'm lucky to have been saddled with you, and with your, no doubt obnoxious --"

" _Saddled with_?" Alfred leaned against the wall beside the door to Arthur's room with a coy grin.  "The way I remember it, I got raffled off.  You entered your name in and you _won_ me.  I'm a _prize_."

"Well, you're the worst prize I ever got!"

"'O-oh, oh Alfred, don't _stop_ , yes -- cum in me, _please_ \--'"

He got a door slamming in his face for his effort.

\--

After what seemed to be an eternity spent sighing and arguing with an imaginary Alfred in his head, there was a knock at his door.  Arthur dove for the protection of his blankets, fully preparing to feign illness if it was his so-called ‘mate’ there to see him.  Sure, he could imagine one hell of an argument, but going against someone like Alfred seemed like it would be too challenging to work out peacefully.

Instead, it was Francis, wearing an understanding smile. "I've been instructed to give you a bath, your majesty -- if it would please you."

"I can’t bathe myself?"

"Most royals seem to prefer not to," Arthur was offered a hand and he took it, unceremoniously rubbing his back as he walked.  The creature inside him was still growing bigger, as well as more sinister the more he found out about the other half of its lineage.

“Was your beef cooked to satisfaction, your majesty?” Since he had arrived no one had called him anything but that, but then, they had no way of knowing how strange it felt in his ears.

“It was good.  Just as good coming back up, actually.”

“I was told that you had not eaten for days before you came.  Such rich food was probably a poor choice on my part, I apologize.”

“Right, well -- let’s talk about something else.” While Alfred's room was as close to Arthur's as possible, the luxurious tile bathroom was down the hall as well as a flight of stairs -- there was a little more struggle to get down them than Arthur would have preferred Francis see him endure, but they did finally arrive to a sprawling, open tub filled with steaming hot water.  "Does Alfred bathe himself, or is he too good for that?" Arthur slowly began to shed his clothes.

"Non, he prefers a harem of beautiful omegas to wash his every crevice." At the shade of red Arthur turned, Francis could only laugh.  "Do not worry, he bathes alone.  Though I doubt he would complain if you joined him."

"That would probably be nice, if I _wanted_ to.  Though I don't.  Who made that bastard a lord, anyway?"

"His father," Francis shrugged.  "Though his father is much more deserving of the position, in my treasonous opinion."

"But who gave his father the authority?"

“It was hardly an election.  But before Alfred was born his father ruled this region -- he thought of himself as a hero, hence the name Heroes’ Enclave.” Arthur scoffed; some sort of outlandish savior complex birthed an entire town.  How cliche.  How utterly _alpha_.

"Well, he and his friends, all Americans, made a habit out of running around and trying to save people.  He freed slaves, killed rapists and gang leaders -- I am told that he had hoped to create something of a police force, re-establishing justice and harmony so a new civilization could begin to form."

The water swirled in colored bubbles around him as Francis splashed a handful of oil from a bottle into it -- _lavender_ , Arthur inhaled.

"The table you sat at today is the founders' table.  Most of the original founders have either passed away or retired, but their children have taken their places -- Alfred is chief, just as his father was before him."

"What about everyone else who lives here?"

“Mostly the benefactors of Alfred’s father’s reign.  Saved from one terrible fate or another and with nowhere else to go, they settled here.  Many have pledged their lives in service to the founders -- others are simply happy to grow their crops or craft their goods and sell them at a discounted price.”

“What do the founders get out of it?”

“Celebrity, I guess.  If you save someone from being raped and give them a safe place to live, they don’t so much thank you as _worship_ you.”

Arthur sank down into the water.  It felt good, certainly, hot baths were a rarity back home -- but it only made him ache for the chilling cold salt water he was used to.  “What about you? Were you a slave, too?”

Francis’ eyes narrowed, though he smiled.  “That is a secret.”

“Saying that only makes me more curious,”

“I am a trader, these days.  If that helps at all.”

“It really doesn’t… but, what do you trade?”

“Secrets.  One for one, as always.”

Intriguing... Arthur popped up out of the water and as Francis moved behind him to wash his hair, he thought.  Francis certainly seemed popular, but then, there was no way to _prove_ that he had said anything at all.  The vast bathroom was empty save for the two of them and an array of unlabeled bottles that only the Frenchman seemed to know the uses of.  “Well, I don’t love Alfred.”

“That much is clear to see.” Francis’ fingers did not slow their massaging pace even slightly.  “You look at him like you would look at a mosquito.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Oui.  But then, everyone else is happy to believe what you tell them, so there is no real harm.  They probably chalk your actions up to pregnancy hormones.”

Arthur did have that much on his side.  He looked carefully at the door and saw no change in the bars of light peeking in from beneath it; there couldn’t be anyone outside listening in.  The bathroom was open and broad, not betraying any sort of hidden corners.  The second that realization dawned, Arthur could not help but lift the weight off his shoulders. “I wasn’t a queen back home.  We don’t exactly -- well, we don’t _have_ royalty.”

The response was not shock or confusion or questions, just a shrug and “I thought as much.  But it is good to hear it confirmed.”

“How could you have possibly known that?”

“We royals can recognize our own.  I knew when I saw you that you couldn’t be a queen.”

Arthur sat for a moment in stunned silence, the bubbles frothing up around him.  There was still no shifting, no surprise, just the methodical scrubbing that suddenly felt very, _very_ out of place.  “You -- then, you’re --”

“Not from here, but from the continent.  Down, time to rinse.” Slowly, Arthur screwed his eyes shut and dipped below the water.  Another palmful of something or other was rubbed into his hair as he came back up.  “Obviously I have no authority here, but then… we didn’t back home either.  My mother thought that she could use her rank from before to establish some kind of unity, but --” He leaned down, whispering into Arthur’s ear as if all his words before had been obvious and the real secrets were to come, “If there is one thing we must remember about the apocalypse, it is that it made us all equal.  I am royal and you are not.  Yet here I am, washing you.”

Francis’ voice didn’t waver or shake or even grow above a murmur.  When he was done he began to hum some tune that hopped and bounce and was -- almost unnerving.  “If I were in your position, I think I’d be angry.”

“I am here because I was saved from a fate worse than washing and cooking for a living.  That fate was what my lineage afforded me -- so I am grateful to be here.  But now we each have each other’s secrets, don’t we?”

Francis took a bucket and poured it over Arthur’s head for the final rinse.  He loomed more than he stood over Arthur, extending a hand with a smile.  “I can only hope I can trust you to keep my secret safe.” Arthur took his hand and stood.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (USUK fluff in this chapter.)

Boom, click.  Boom, click.  These sounds, along with obnoxious chatter, had been the anthem of Arthur’s morning since just after breakfast.  At no point had he agreed to come outside and watch Alfred’s daily target practice, but he had ended up there, anyway.  Arthur’s baby stirred as if it might be interested, and the temptation to throw up his breakfast only grew. **  
**

“See? I got that one right in the middle.  Pretty neat right?”

“You must be terribly wealthy in bullets if you’re so keen to waste them all like that.”

Alfred, who had been bouncing with a child’s energy as well as a child’s desperate thirst for attention since he had dragged him away from the dining table, seemed to momentarily deflate.  It didn’t last long, however, because he bounced back the moment a new thought crossed his head.  “Hey, by the way, when are you gonna let me feel the baby?”

“When it’s born…” Arthur turned to leave and paused halfway there, holding his hand to his chin.  “And a few weeks after that.” And with that he crossed the yard into the mansion again.  Alfred had surely wasted what he paid for him within the last 10 minutes; no need to watch any longer.

“Come on, just one feel? I’m not gonna try anything.”

"How could I possibly know that for sure?”

"Well -- you can't.  Not for sure anyways.  But that's okay, because I won't try anything, and you can trust me." He signed this promise with a giant smile, his signature.  Arthur erased it off his face with a scowl.

“I’ll let you feel it when pigs fly, how about that?”

“Aww, Arthur, come on --”

"Piss off."

Alfred sighed and resigned to a change of subject.  "I _can't_.  We have to go to the meeting."

"That's today?"

"Lunch today, yeah."

Just for the sake of being in Alfred’s way Arthur halted in the doorway with his arms crossed.  “I’ve lost my appetite.”

As if on cue, Francis practically (probably literally, not that Arthur had any idea about dancing) waltzed out of the kitchen with a nearly-overflowing bouquet of long, perfectly browned bread in his arms.  It seemed he had caught the latter part of their conversation, because he stepped in to repair it with his usual smile.

"Good morning, your majesty."

" _Your majesty_ yourself," Arthur couldn't muster much of a retort since he was focused on the prospect of hot bread.  Knowing his position as well as Francis’, it would not be just a prospect for long.

"Would you like some?"

He had asked.  So it wasn't rude.  "One, please."

"Well, let me get my knife and I can slice you a --" Arthur didn’t need to bother with words when he’d had enough of them all morning.  He snatched a loaf and shoved the tip into his mouth to be gnawed away as he entered the meeting hall.  Alfred unwisely trailed behind him, just out of striking range.

“You know, I think this is the sexiest you’ve been since you got here.  With that big long --” He was safely out of arm’s reach, but he forgot to factor the length of Arthur’s baguette into the equation and got a wallop for his mistake.  Alfred was at least able to reason that it could have been worse -- there were many thick and heavy objects in his mansion.  That Arthur chose to hit him with bread was a blessing.

Though he did wish under his breath that he had a mate who didn’t feel the need to hit him at all... But it seemed that fate had different plans for him and his love life.

As Alfred brushed a mess of crumbs from his lapel, he took hold of Arthur’s hand and stepped into the main hall.  The table was already occupied with loud, chattering alphas; alphas with birthrights and little more to their names.  Arthur had slowly become accustomed to them over the weeks, and though they surged to see him every time he was nearby, it was only with a disdainful smile that Arthur greeted them.

At the very least they had all learned not to touch his belly through trial and (not error, but) resulting abuse.  Whether it was a simple sour face or retaliatory shoves, they were, under no circumstances, allowed to defend themselves; being under Alfred’s protection in this foreign place (and especially in a room full of alphas who were constantly pseudo-concerned for his well-being) was completely priceless, even if Arthur did have to remind himself of it occasionally.

They had established early on that Alfred was only to touch him when helping with his typical mately duties, and that included lowering him down gently into his chair.  As soon as that was complete the young lord hopped, ever youthful, to his own seat.  The meeting was called to order just as Arthur made a mental note to consciously ignore the strange glances he was getting; he was not about to educate a table of alphas on the process of pregnancy and how ‘eating for two’ was no euphemism.  Baby wanted bread.  Baby got bread.  Arthur was only the delivery process and taste tester (and Francis’ food hadn’t come up since the beef on his first day, which was more of a miracle than the pregnancy itself!).

"-- hasn't shared your bed since he arrived."

Arthur had decided to tune back into the conversation at the wrong moment.  Alfred was helpfully biting his nails and looking around as if the alphas around him had turned to lions in the short moments Arthur was mentally absent.  It seemed the council’s pseudoconcern now extended to their lord’s bedroom.

“Yeah, well.  He’s pregnant, you know.  Pregnant people have to pee all the time, so he -- well, _we_ , decided that he should have his own room.  So he can pee a lot and not wake me up.” Only stiff silence followed.  The others frowned, reluctant to respond with anything definite and instead just nodding at their own notes and averting their gazes.  “Is that all? Because I actually wanted to talk about the southern wheat fields today --”

A female alpha slammed her fists on the table and stood.  Though this was only a casual lunch meeting and Arthur was only a step above pajamas in his clothing, she was clad from head to toe in armor.  Her helmet lay on the table in front of her and she had no notes, only venom for Alfred.  Not that he minded her giving him a good verbal walloping.  Out of the corner of Arthur’s eye, Alfred seemed stricken with fear. “Your mate must be stressed in this delicate time, and to see you abandoning him is unsettling, not just to me, but to all of us.  What kind of a leader can you be if you won’t even support your mate and child?”

“Really I’m fine, I’m not delicate in the least,” Though Arthur was a queen to these people, his opinion seemed to matter little in this subject.  Above all things he would have thought that a gang of high-strung young alphas would be the last ones who cared to weigh in, but then -- this hadn’t been the first time that Arthur had to carefully remind himself that he wasn’t home any more.

The woman’s ferocity turned gentle when she looked at him.  “It’s alright, you don’t need to be proud any more --” she shot Alfred a dangerous look, “By all means, it is your partner who should be most supportive of you.”

Arthur felt a hand on his shoulder and tried not to tense.  They might as well be performing, after all, and the alphas all melted for the fake affection.  “Alright, alright, I give.  Starting tonight, Arthur will stay in my room, okay? And I _won’t_ take no for an answer, little guy.”

"I wouldn't dream of telling you no."

Satisfied with their display, the council adjourned and quickly dispersed without the usual fanfare to see the only pregnant omega for miles.  Unaccompanied, Arthur practically ran back to his dusty room with the chandelier, trying to relish his time away from Alfred so their night could be a little more bearable.  It would not be long until Alfred sent for him.

When Francis appeared again, he didn’t come silently so much as Arthur hadn’t been focused at all and paid the price with his surprise.  “Did you hear me? The young lord would like to see you now.”

“He can’t come and fetch me on his own?” His bed was warm and decidedly absent of obnoxious ‘young lords’; leaving it was the opposite of enticing.

“He’s a little occupied at the moment, actually.  But I am sure you will be grateful.”

Francis hadn’t minded the fact that Arthur had been hoarding nearly everything he'd made since he arrived, so it was only out of gratitude that he yielded and followed, but not before grabbing his favorite pillow.  Together they walked (and waddled) the entire three meters to Alfred’s room, and as Francis opened the door and did his usual curtsy, Arthur tried not to gasp.

In the corner of the magnificent room, bathed in fresh but fading sunlight, was a nest.  This room had been a royal omega’s room since it was built, it seemed; the floor gave way to an in-ground stone dugout just deep enough to hide inside of.  With raised sides and a comfortable curved underbelly, it was not just lined but _filled_ with pillows and the softest furs Arthur might ever see in his lifetime.  Alfred approached carrying a veritable _stack_ of even more pillows; enough to block out his face until he tossed them onto the ever-growing pile.

“Hey, good to see you.”

“You made all this?”

“Well, the servants didn’t make it.”

“You don’t seem like the type, though…” Arthur couldn’t bring himself to hesitate for the sake of appearances, he settled himself into the nest and tested how the blankets lining the edges felt on his aching legs.

“It isn’t really our nest if someone else makes it, is it?”

“What is this? It’s soft.”

“Goose down.  Pretty cool, right? My dad only ever brought them out for special occasions, and if this isn’t special I don’t know what is.” The moment the door shut and Francis was absent he tiptoed closer, arousing instant suspicion in Arthur.

“Can I touch the baby now?"

Arthur rolled his eyes and swathed himself in goosefeather blankets.  “Yes.”

"I guess pigs flew today, huh?"

Arthur chuckled.  "I suppose so."

That night Arthur slept curled around Alfred and never once protested the hand that stayed on his belly, carefully feeling the little kicks and movements of the life inside.  



	9. Chapter 9

Arthur awoke to darkness and the alpha in his nest wriggling with uncontrolled excitement.    


“Arthur.  Hey, Arthur, wake up! The sun’s about to rise, wanna watch?” He did think to protest, but the goose down was sucking him up -- and leaving his perfect spot curled around a pillow and using Alfred’s arm as a headrest just to swat him upside the head seemed almost unthinkable.  As the brewing sun bubbled over the horizon and bathed the room in warmth, Arthur buried his face deeper into pillows to keep from being disturbed.  

Alfred thought to disturb him. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Can’t remember the last time I watched a sunrise,” Arthur’s muffled words somehow made it clearly to Alfred’s ears, because he rubbed little circles on Arthur’s shoulder in a way that managed to be… not entirely unpleasant.

He might have been the perfect mate, if he was mute.

“So, in that fort thing you lived in, did you really just fuck however many alphas you wanted?”

“Yes.”

“So none of ‘em mean anything to you?”

“Well, not necessarily…” The circles stopped, until he made a needy sound and Alfred quickly returned to them.

“So, how many did you have before me? If -- you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“Just one,” Seeing as Alfred was completely incapable of shutting his damn mouth and that alone was enough to rouse all the sleepiness out of him, Arthur sat up.  “But I didn’t exactly miss her when she left, if you get what I mean.”

“So… you missed me.”

“I never said that.”

“You implied it just now, though.”

“I did _not_.  And why are you so jealous?

“I’m definitely not jealous.  Why would I be? I mean, you’re not having her baby are you?”

“Obviously not, because this monster is big enough that it could burst out of me any moment.   _And_ it’s annoying on a level only you are, so it has to be yours.”

Alfred, for once, turned silent.  Arthur could see the thoughts going through his head, over and over presenting him something to say and yet, he said nothing.  He resigned to lay his head back and fiddle with his pajama top, popping his buttons in and out of their respective holes and fiddling with his collar nervously.  “Do omegas even bond during a heat?”

"Of course we do, idiot," Arthur scoffed.

"Then why is it so easy for you to have so many different alphas? You don’t even care --"

“As if you wouldn’t jump any horny omega that walked into the room this instant,” As he laughed, he wasn’t met with any resistance, only a halfhearted frown and a sigh, and suddenly -- he didn’t feel at all like laughing any more.  It turned swiftly into stiff silence that lasted what felt like forever but hit a sudden end when Alfred muttered something, stood, and left.  It occurred to Arthur to say something and make him stop, but the words played hide-and-seek with him and tiptoed around in his head until the door clicked shut.  It was only him, the baby and the sunrise.

“Idiot,” Arthur let a pillow take Alfred’s place and fell asleep clenching his teeth.

\--

Down the same pathway that had first welcomed him to the mansion, Arthur strolled as if he might leave at any moment.  Francis walked beside him, a pace behind -- his head bowed out of a sense of respect that itched at Arthur’s subconscious where it never had before.

“Does it ever seem unfair to you?”

“What’s that, your majesty?”

“There’s no one else here, you don’t have to call me that.”

“That is your rank, whether it is you and I or the entire village speaking of you.”

“-- Doesn’t it ever seem unfair that you’re really royalty, but you have to stay here and take care of me? I’m just a fraud, but here you are accompanying me just in case I want a snack or need my feet rubbed -- it’s like some sick joke.”

“Isn’t it unfair that one person should be born into the right to rule, while others are born into slavery?” 

Arthur didn’t bother looking back, just watched the ground disappear over the horizon of his belly and bit his lip.  When he had spit those words out and felt the relief with getting them out of his head, he had expected Francis to be angry, to be sad, to have venom to retaliate with -- he had been prepared, but now there was nothing to argue.  “The only people who say that are the ones who are jealous of those who are born with it, you know.”

“Even if I still had all the power that was my ‘birthright’,” Francis laughed, and that was when Arthur turned to look, “There are things I would trade it for in an instant.”

“Like what?”

“Everything you have,” There was the sadness, evident only in the way the constant smile in Francis’ eyes quieted and faded.  He shrugged away the wad of guilt that sat still in Arthur’s stomach where it shouldn’t have, reached up and removed his hair from its bun to run fingers through it.  “Everything you lament having on a _daily basis_ , my friend.”

Arthur felt a queue of questions forming along his tongue and down his throat, but he couldn’t find the spark to light and ask any of them.  Instead he simply stared, his body going stiff and silent to listen to whatever explanation Francis could provide.  “Fearing the punishments threatened to him if he didn’t find a mate and produce an heir, my mother made one all by himself.  He was allowed to stay on his fragile throne just long enough for him to pass, and it is thanks to that desperation that I am… me.  I am not my own person, only a copy -- born with the right to rule but no assignment.  I can never have children, or an alpha’s love.”

The tree trunk held Arthur like a strong arm as he slid down it and fell in a pile at its base.  Francis stood where he was in the road, watching as if arguing whether or not he should do anything with himself.  His hands stayed relaxed, his teeth unground while the omega’s head spun and he covered his face with his palms; the darkness of banished daylight was the most welcome thing he’d had all day.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Francis kneeled in front of him.  “I didn’t know, I --”

“Of course you didn’t know,” his laugh was gentle; perhaps out of some sense of respect for royalty Arthur peered up at him through the cracks between his fingers.  “I didn’t intend to just make you upset -- I only hoped that you might find a little more peace with your position.  It is your God-given right, now.” Arthur sniffled through a bitter frown.  “Take my hand.  We should be getting back.” Between the tree’s old bark and Francis’ hand, he managed to scramble and find his feet where he couldn’t see them.

“This is twice now that you’ve helped me up,”

“You are growing heavier each time, so don’t make me do it again,” Wiping his tears on his sleeve, Arthur gave him a playful swat.

Time stood still while the leaves swirled around them in a lazy ballet.  They had not stopped shedding since before Arthur had arrived, and though he was secretly thankful for the view of the sky they provided, he wondered if they would make it to his due date.  As they wandered deeper onto the mansion grounds and well-manicured bushes popped up around them, Arthur felt a sense of urgency -- even before he heard his name being called.

Around the far western corner, Alfred appeared.  His shoulders slumped in relief as he saw them approaching and he broke into a jog to meet them.

“He is a good man,” Francis murmured just before he entered earshot, “You will come to like him.  I promise.”

“Promise what,” The lord seemed unconcerned with Francis’ usual bow, and strangely it occurred to Arthur that it didn’t bother him nearly as much as it had before.

“That tonight’s dinner will be a masterpiece.”

“Always is.  Hey, thanks for keeping an eye on him for me.” Alfred wove his fingers through his expecting to be repelled by the omega.  Instead, Arthur gave him a squeeze and led him inside; when he started on talking about some ridiculous thing or another Arthur fought the urge to look over his shoulder.  “I guess you can’t hate me that bad after all, huh?”

“I guess not,” Arthur said with a sigh -- if he had known how ecstatic Alfred would be, he might not have said it at all, but then, he had a lot to learn about the alpha.

That night in their nest, Alfred kissed him for the first time.  Arthur closed his eyes, made a deal with himself to take Francis’ word, and kissed him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all so much for hanging on this long! I actually only have a few chapters to go! I'm sure some of you saw this coming but Francis is a 'delta', the result of a male omega asexually impregnating himself (in his mother's case, out of desperation to produce an heir). Because of this he is genetically a clone of his single parent, he has no working sex organs. His scent is weak and ambiguous; most of the time when someone smells him they assume that he is the same type as them. Basically I have a lot of headcanons about stuff like this, and this world in particular. Next chapter coming soon!


	10. Chapter 10

“ _Peekaboo_!” **  
**

“That’s not my face.”

“Well yeah, but now the baby can’t see me.  The baby has to guess.”

“The baby can’t speak.”

“Okay, well… you wanna guess who? In the baby’s stead, I mean.”

Arthur rolled his eyes and tried hard not to smile; smiling would only prove the stupid bastard right.  “Alfred.”

“That’s _lord_ Alfred.  But good guess, baby!”

“I’m not going to speak in our child’s person any more.  Aren’t you supposed to be the responsible adult ruler, here?” Alfred rolled around like a giddy child, supported everywhere by goose down and the blankets Arthur had piled on top of them.

Between Arthur’s unwillingness to yield (even the smallest things, every inch of cover, every bite of his food) and Alfred’s unending persistence they had found a strange peace somewhere.  It was the peace of compromise, at least, and Arthur reasoned that since they were already having a baby together, it couldn’t hurt to be _friends_.

It also couldn’t hurt their image as a shining couple cursed by circumstance and blessed by fate to let a few of the servants catch them kissing before dinner -- word spread fast in the mansion, even as Arthur scoffed and snorted and acted positively livid; Alfred’s foot still tapped his under the table and invited him to play all the same.

“I’m about to be sick,” became a normal part of Arthur’s daily conversation, and Alfred gently helping him hobble back to their nest became a part of their day as well.  But then, so did Arthur plopping his feet into Alfred’s lap as a silent proposal, and the following footrub -- but Arthur couldn’t complain about that.

It would be best, he decided one day, if they went on a walk about town.  He never expected all the gifts and hand-kissing, but judging from Alfred’s amused giggles, this was standard fare and he was the only one out of the loop -- just the next in a long string of such incidents, but when people kept asking to touch his belly and feel the leader of the next generation kick, how could he say no? Even if it was odd -- and he was certain that the baby recognized the handprints as foreign because he kicked them away with fervor.

And speaking of the baby, Arthur was becoming gradually more sure that his child was not only a son but an alpha.  No longer ‘a little big’ as he had been in the fort, his presence inside Arthur’s body was enough to turn his silhouette into a monstrosity; all the mirrors in their part of the mansion were cautiously carried away, and Alfred’s occasionally-obsessive preening had less to do with it than Arthur let on.  The child was obnoxious enough to have him vomit up anything that did not arrive in the womb with a heaping helping of meat.

So the little bastard was a carnivore.  That was fine with everyone but Arthur; Francis was happy to scramble and slaughter what had to be half the manor’s chicken population to satisfy the fussy unborn brat, and Alfred somehow found ways to laugh whenever he ran for the loo or whined about how his feet had swollen.

Only an alpha could cause such trouble.

It was otherwise quiet the day Alfred took the loneliness Arthur had dealt with since his arrival and banished it from his kingdom.  Two other omegas appeared at the door, summoned solely on one basis -- they were the only others who had proved to be fertile.  By the calculations Kiku had put together that muddled day back home, they were all horribly unprepared to keep the place going; three fertile omegas to a town of at least a thousand wouldn’t so much as dent the yearly loss.

“Sometimes I worry that we might have to live like broodcows if we want to keep the place going,” Toris laughed and bounced a toddler on his knee.  He was the same omega Arthur remembered from the long wagon train ride home, the one who watched over him and carried a weapon with a fierceness in his eyes that said he was made to do it.

“I’m sure you realize what a rarity you are,” Arthur began and tried not to stare at the baby too long, “Why would they let you go out and fight? Losing you would be -- well, tragic.  At least.”

“I’m honored you think so… I admit they weren’t too keen on the idea at first, but I insisted.  I miss the time with the little ones, sure, but -- it’s worth it.  This place has given me so much, I should repay them, right?”

The meek looking blond beside him nodded without a word.  She herself looked as if the sight of a battle would crush her, but then -- Arthur couldn’t really talk.  He’d fired at (and purposefully missed) his fair share of intruders near the fort, but never so much as put a bullet in someone.  From the sound of it, that set him far behind both of the other omegas. “I can’t help but wonder if I’ll ever be called to duty.”

“I’m sure you’re far too dear to Lord Alfred’s heart,” Lily practically whispered.

“Aside from that,” As if he was asking something scandalous, Toris leaned in with a smile.  “Do you think you’re having an alpha or an omega?”

“Only an alpha could be this _obnoxious_ ,” Arthur spat, and the only two people for miles that could understand his pain laughed along with him.

“They say a rough pregnancy yields unimaginable rewards, though.  Maybe you’ll have twins.”

“Don’t even say that,” Arthur groaned.

“You know what an alpha would mean, though,” Lily spoke up, “All the more reason to try and have another one.”

Arthur went to bed that night in Alfred’s arms, wondering silently if his protection would really be as handy as everyone said it was.

\--

That night he dreamed.  He was in a world where the sky was still blue and the grass was still green, in his mother’s world -- he wandered aimlessly without a beast or person to keep him company.  For the first time since he became pregnant his dreams reflected the reality, and in his shadow he could see a swollen stomach, as out of place as it ever was.  He stumbled and struggled through the endless daytime as the distant clouds swirled in a circle around him like bright white buzzards.

Arthur found his way not by sight nor smell but feeling, through the winding roads and endless windswept grasslands, back home.  There was no drawbridge there, everything was open and exposed like a wound that might never get the chance to scab against the sea spray and cold winds.  But when was this land ever cold?

Kiku greeted him at the gate, wringing his hands nervously but at least offering a smile.  “Welcome home.”

Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but not a single sound came out.

Like the fist of a furious god called upon by his silent message, a storm of fire fell on Fort Perseverance.  The walls stood tall and proud as the omegas inside it fled its former safety into the surrounding foothills -- and one by one got picked off by the alphas that waited for them there.  Kiku, too, followed their lead into the darkness, hoping to find comfort -- and even though Arthur called to him there was no noise but the crackling boom of the flame that was quickly turning his birth-home into ash.

Swept up in a vast explosion, the wind carried Arthur high, the gray of the fort faded to black, and as he looked up he saw those same white clouds open further, further, further still…

The clouds above really _were_ buzzards, mouths open and patiently waiting.  As his flight turned into a fall, Arthur jumped and broke his terror -- opening the door into wakefulness and the real world.

Alfred was leaning against the wall of their room with a hand on his head, listening silently to the war advisor with the long brown hair.  Arthur could only stare at them, wide eyed and shaking.

“Fort Perseverance is under siege.  We’re leaving to liberate it at dawn.”

Arthur opened his mouth.

But he couldn’t make a single sound.


	11. Chapter 11

He was ordered and not asked to go back to sleep -- but Arthur was sure that Francis knew as well as he did that it wasn’t going to happen.  Sleep was going to be fleeting for a while; and that didn’t just apply to him, who at least had the excuse of a squirming human in his belly.  Instead he opted to stand beside Alfred, correct his folding and mumble until he grew tired; not just of fussing over his mate, but all over. **  
**

Arthur rubbed his eyes, finally allowing Alfred to pack on his own and stay resigned to the bed. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“A little,” Alfred shrugged.  “You had a nightmare, so I woke up.”

“You -- heard that, huh?”

Alfred paused for a moment, holding a long tunic in his hand before deciding against it and throwing it into a pile on the floor.  “Usually when you do that, if I hold you, you stop.”

“I see,” Arthur looked him up and down.  “How often do I do this?”

“Every few nights I guess.  Did you -- you know,”

“She died when I was a teenager,” Arthur wondered just how much armor the soldiers in the town below were packing -- and, sickly, hoped Alfred was packing more than any of them. “I think I wish she had gotten to be a grandmother before she went, that’s all.”

“Then I guess it’s good you’re staying here.”

Alfred should have known better than to speak when Arthur had the same stubborn look on his face; he kept folding his clothes over his arms and tossing them into the standard issue crate that was to be his.  Arthur stayed silent for a moment as his heart rate soared -- the baby kicked like it was annoyed.  “I’m _not_ staying.”

“Arthur, you’re gonna pop any day now.  What happens if we get there and you go into labor?” He slammed the lid to his crate shut and stood, firm.  He was the alpha, he was the boss.   _He_ was the one who should be able to raise his voice just a little and have Arthur nodding in agreement.  “Look, there’s not enough guards in the world that could protect you as much as I want you protected.  I’m leading an attack, I can’t do it myself, so you have to stay here.”

Staring.  Grit teeth.  Alfred inhaled and tried not to be angry, but in the end he slammed the door and Arthur looked after him with his fists in the bedsheets.

The empty space beside Alfred on the wagon was filled by Francis, who received a pat on the shoulder for his effort.  “Thanks, man.  You know, it’s good that I’ve got an alpha friend I can trust.” Francis had smiled his understanding smile too many times for it to look as fake as it felt to him any more.  He knew better than anyone that Alfred needed genuine comfort more than anyone, after all -- the odds that the young lord could be stirred from his moping were disappearing the further they got away from home.

In fact it was only when Heroes’ Enclave disappeared over the horizon entirely that Alfred stopped looking back and raised his gaze forward.  

Arthur refused to watch them go.  He let the wind from the surrounding hills whip him up as he sat and watched the targets lined up behind the manor and listened to the chickens (whose population had still not recovered from the baby’s hungry earlier months) cluck in rhythm.  It had been months since he thought about the dolphins, but he finally did; and as another gale swooped past and sent the chickens scrambling for cover, he swore he could almost smell cool sea air and feel his friends circling him in greeting.

The quiet footsteps of a servant behind him crunched louder and louder until they stopped, and an equally hushed voice asked, “Is there anything I can do for you, your majesty?”

“Take a message for me,” Arthur looked back at him.

Lily, Toris and his mate Feliks met him at the back gate of the manor, murmuring to one another in excited voices.  Arthur stumbled out using the long end of a rifle as his walking stick, and suddenly they all stood at attention.

Feliks, the blond Arthur hadn’t met before, stood half-behind Toris with a stern expression and kept his hands firmly in his jacket; when Toris apologized for his lack of manners, he only frowned and leaned his head on his mate’s shoulder.

“This morning, the troops left for my --” There were words he was calling on, but they wouldn’t quite come; he struggled for a moment, “My old home.  I say we should go, too.”

Feliks looked him up and down and only paused to stare at his belly. “ _You’re_ coming?”

“I would not have called you here if I wasn’t going as well.”

“Here I thought we were being ordered away like lambs to slaughter,” Feliks burst out of his previous shell and into a bright, grinning new one.  Arthur stood, stunned, and allowed him to throw his arms around him in a hug.  “Anyone that brave is a good guy in my book.  Let’s go, fatty!”

Toris, in a perpetual state of following his mate and apologizing for his discrepancies, murmured “He means that as a compliment, your majesty,” and accepted Arthur’s bewildered smile as the best kind of response: silent, but positive.  It was really the only way to behave around the suddenly bouncing omega.

“There’s no need to call me that, really.  Arthur will do fine.”

\--

“So why didn’t you leave when your baby’s daddy left?” If bouncing a child under one arm and inspecting a firearm with the other was some kind of talent, Feliks was a master of it.  Finding the shotgun suitable, he slammed it shut with a click and tossed it to Toris, who then delicately arranged it beside the others in the wagon Lily had fetched.

Arthur felt somewhat useless leaning against the wall of their little stone cottage.  “He insisted that I stay behind.”

“And you’re going anyway? _Sweet._ ”

Toris didn’t take the news so well, and was startled enough to make Arthur worry for his health in passing -- “Feliks! We can’t be part of some conspiracy against Lord Alfred! He’s going to be furious --”

“What’s he gonna do, sterilize you?” Toris deflated a little in the doorway, fists clenched at his sides; Arthur took his place as gun handler and loader while he sputtered helplessly with his mate.

They left just as the sun was setting with no fanfare and only a creaking lantern to guide them safely.  It was best that they leave under cloak of darkness, Arthur reasoned.  The usual highwaymen and petty thieves that lurked in the daytime wouldn’t be as prone to attack something they couldn’t see -- or so he hoped.  Even if Alfred and the others had a sizable head start, they weren’t in nearly as much danger as a small pack of mostly untrained omegas and what few firearms they had between them; though Lily had proven to be surprisingly well-armed, and though she gave credit to her brother Feliks insisted that she had just as much as he did.

And if those highwaymen _did_ think to attack them, well, Lily’s stash included a few rusty grenades.

“He’s probably missing you by now, your majesty,” Feliks elbowed Arthur and got the tense response he was expecting from his body before his mouth could formulate one.

“He has every right to.”

Still stuck in his cyclical pouting fit, Toris had hardly said a word since they’d left and had instead taken to leading the pack donkey with huffy, stomping footsteps.  Like a cat playing with the yarn that was his mate’s emotions (all rolled up into a ball), Feliks tossed a rock at him.

Windswept and staring at the stars with a pistol in her lap, Lily looked like a renegade princess from a storybook.  She laughed a melodical, soft laugh, “It’s a marvelous coincidence that Toris just had the little one a few months ago.  Otherwise he could have never made this journey with us,” 

“Hippo feet or no hippo feet, Toris is a tough kid.  He’d still insist on coming.”

“It would probably make Lord Alfred go easier on me in his scolding…” Toris added.

Just as it dawned on the hills, it dawned on Arthur: they were close to home.  As he sat up in his seat to look, it peeked shyly over the gleaming horizon to greet them -- and truly, the sight of the very tips of its towers had never been more welcome to his eyes.  Fort Perseverance stood where she always had, her walls as tall as they ever were, defending everything inside as she always would, siege or no siege.

But then the hills fell away so Arthur could see that his home was not just bathed in sunlight; it was bathed in fire.  



	12. Chapter 12

A squad of alphas, guns ready and cocked, greeted them alongside dark stormclouds at the crown of the hill just as they arrived.  They found Arthur struggling awkwardly to get off the cart and rush towards the fort -- as if he could do anything -- but it was by sheer luck that one of the council members, the alpha woman with long brown hair, was among them to recognize him.  


“It’s Elizabeth,” She reminded him when he gave her a dumbstruck look and held her hand in a limp grasp.  Arthur could only look over her shoulder as the fort drawbridge went up in smoke.  His home and all within was just a bad gust away from becoming a pile of soot, and even as it began to rain in quiet pitter-pattering drops there was no chance the flames could be quelled.

When the alpha realized she wasn’t about to get a response from him, she put him back on the cart and led them straight to Alfred, hoping at least that the two would be happy to see one another.

Alfred was _not_ happy -- but then, neither was Arthur.

Alfred snatched his mate up, at first with an iron tight grip, and then with a gentler one only so he could brush a hand through his hair and feel the sweat in it.  “You came all this way, and you didn’t even wear armor.  What the hell, Arthur?”

“It isn’t as if any of it would fit me.”

“I _told_ you to stay put,” Alfred grit his teeth.

“Well,” Arthur glanced to the omegas behind him.  Lily stood at the ready with her pistol drawn, and though Feliks and Toris looked like they would be a picture perfect scene with children bouncing off their hips they instead ran their hands over the length of their rifles, smiles wide and determined.  “We’re tired of staying put.”

“I need you to be careful.”

“Well then you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that I’m not _fucking_ careful.”

Alfred looked up to see the stunned silence of his troops, and squeezed his hand on the omega’s shoulder.  “Come on, let’s get you into my tent so you can lie down.  Okay?”

Had the circumstances been different, Arthur might have been silently grateful that Alfred actually had peppermint leaves at the ready to make tea for him -- instead he felt the long hours spent traversing the hillside trails instead of sleeping starting to hit him, and knowing that peppermint had no caffeine whatsoever only made him dread putting it into his stomach.

But then it was brewed and handed to him hot and steaming, and he drank it in big gulps without regard for the fact that it was burning his throat.  Alfred watched with the exhausted expression that Arthur had come to assume he himself carried most of the time.

“My dad wasn’t there when I was born,” Alfred said, and Arthur let the steam from what little tea remained fill his nostrils and welcomed the smell of something other than smoke.  “He had work to do, being the world’s policeman and all that, and I understood that I was just one of the things that fell through the cracks, you know?” Arthur set his teacup down and nodded with a pouting sniff.

“I have things that fall through my cracks; my council hardly knows me, I don’t have a lot of friends, but of all the things I can’t let you be one of them, do you understand? I just…” he shook his head, “I can’t.”

“Well if that’s what you were worried about, shouldn’t you be happy I’m here? Now you’ll be here for it, no matter what.” A cool breeze blew through and fanned the flames that fed on the castle; he could see the shifting glow even through the tarp and ropes. “Why is it burning,” Arthur’s face twisted into something ugly and sad.

“There was a siege, babe,” The alpha’s hands fiddled for a moment before he resolved to sit beside his mate.  “There was nothing we could do.”

“Is -- is everyone inside… ?”

“Well, there’s at least _one_ survivor,” Alfred said with a huff, “We’ve tried to send people to shout orders over the wall, but someone up there is a good shot.” He mimed a gun to his own forehead, “Four soldiers gone like that.  One bullet to the head, each time.”

Just as he said it, another gunshot rang out, apparently bringing the headcount to five, and horrified mumbling followed from all sides of the tent like a symptom of schizophrenic terror for Arthur.  Against every fiber in their beings the militia did not panic and stood stiff as yet another too-bold alpha lay facedown in the mud before them.

Arthur watched through the flap of the tent as the click-click sound of the rifle reloading rang out and the troops took generous steps back.  

Alfred, it seemed, would not leave until Arthur was curled up in his cot, a blanket over his shoulders and the lingering warmth of the teacup on his palms.  “I have to go deal with this, okay? Just stay here and I’ll be right back.”

He was gone, and to the distant sound of his mate shouting orders and the resulting scramble to arms, Arthur undid the ties on the captain’s tent and stepped outside.  Elizabeth and the omegas who had accompanied him were gone, perhaps joining the anxious troops on the far side of the hill, so Arthur walked past where they had stood -- and raised his hands high above his head.

The dead alpha who was turning the black mud red still lay where he had been, and Arthur took his place beside him, staring up into the broiling flames that were slowly cooking the fort.  From behind him he heard a gasp and recognized Alfred by the panicked tone in his voice; but he would have to apologize later.  

Through the thick streams of smoke and heat there was no way to make out a human silhouette, but as the familiar sensation that all eyes were on him washed over Arthur, he had to look up at the top of the wall.  


There was only one omega in the fort who had shooting experience beyond firing at the ground to scare away the odd curious traveler -- he _had_ to be the one to make that shot, not just once but five times.

“Ivan, listen to me, it’s Arthur.  I’m back,”

A clap of lightning illuminated a figure standing tall at the crest of the wall -- gun raised.


	13. Chapter 13

Judging from not just the sound but the feel of the wind in his ears and on his face, some invisible god was trying to blow him over.  Beyond the walls a gentle voice called, “Arthur?” **  
**

Arthur jumped.  “Kiku?”

The small, unassuming omega always loathed guard duty and took any lengths he could to avoid it -- even asking Ivan to let him off as a favor with the promise that he would do something ‘more honorable’ with his time.  Apparently there wasn’t a lot of room for honor any more.  “What the hell are you doing up there?”

“ _Sweating_ ,” Kiku replied with a gasp -- but there was the unmistakeable shakiness of relief in his voice, easy to make out even through a ring of boiling flame.  “It is good to see you again.” The barrel of the gun tipped skyward and welcomed sunlight into its recesses for the first time; his grip on it was suddenly gentle.

Alfred’s army -- perhaps even Alfred himself must have been frozen where they were, because there was no more anxious humming half-bitten back, no more cries of Arthur’s name.  The omega stood where he was, unshot and with an idle hand on his belly, exchanging neighborly chatter with the man who had felled five of the great militia with a hunter’s ease.

Suddenly, that tense, too-quiet sound was broken like a butcher calf’s backbone with a long, deathly creak that demanded to be heard.  With a sound like a great creature’s dying sounds the gate Arthur’s mother had died nailing together fell to the ground in cinders -- a sudden gust whipped forward and sucked the hot ash away into the sky.

Nothing but bare stone and bent metal lay in the entranceway.

There were no gangs of roving thugs in sight, no sneering alphas waiting for tender omega prey to run out in panic, but Alfred’s troops scrambled in professional chaos.  From sprawling scatterplot to uniform line they turned instantaneously, guns hoisted, at attention to simply dissuade anyone who may be lurking out of view.  They should have realized that, to a fort filled with nervous, besieged omegas, it just looked like yet another in a long string of threats.

Kiku took one breath, aimed, fired.  And ended another alpha’s life.  The others in front stood fast with wringing hands and shifting eyes.

_Click click._

With his hands still up, Arthur shuffled more than he ran to the gate.  Just the minor effort and the smoke surrounding him kept him gasping for air.  “Listen to me,” He called, “The alpha leading this army is my mate.  They have no ill intentions.”

“Then why would they come here?”

“They don’t want to see it in ruins again,” Arthur inhaled black smoke, “Neither do you.  Please, just let me in.”

With a deep set frown, Kiku looked out over the militiamen, still holding firm as a medical team slunk past their ranks to drag the fallen soldiers away -- and nodded.  “I can’t stop you.”

Arthur used to run through the gates, knowing that they would always be welcome to him; but the walls that used to stand as a beacon of solidarity and safety to be seen even from the coast now seemed shaky and ill, like they may fall around him any moment.  He tiptoed through the rubble in the gateway, felt the little nails embedded in the dirt through his soles and wondered which of them had sunk into his mother’s flesh and doomed her all those years ago.

He remembered the courtyard the way it used to be, bustling with conversation and movement -- just the thought of that made it feel ever more scorched and hollow.  He felt but did not see a thousand eyes on him, not just from behind barely-cracked doors but from the long lines of soldiers outside.  They all stood to lose their lives if a man less understanding than Kiku were to take the place at the top of the wall; Arthur was the negotiator, with the ending to all their stories in his hands.

Thankful to be rid of their gazes, Arthur turned a corner and found Kiku abandoning his post; grimly, he realized that there was no one there to replace him.  True to his word he was soaked in sweat and a thick layer of soot, but through it all he couldn’t hide a smile.  Arthur knew he would never ask, so he hugged him tightly on his own.

Like a switch had been flipped Kiku receded into his calculating clinician persona and began his interrogation.  “How has your pregnancy been progressing? You have grown considerably,”

“It likes meat, so that’s good I think,” Arthur grinned, “But you -- you’re a much better shot than when I left.  Used to be you couldn’t hit the ground if you tried, you know.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Kiku gave him a lopsided frown.  “But I am afraid I cannot take credit for all the enemy kills.  Ivan has been insistent that he take guard duty as well, even despite his wound.  He only stayed in bed this morning because I insisted.”

"Wound?" The baby stirred with worry; Arthur clutched his hand over it.

"He was shot in the chest two days ago.” A moment passed where they didn’t make any eye contact; Arthur looked around as if his old friend might appear somewhere.

“How long does he have?”

“Not much at all.”

"Do you think he’ll see me?"

“I will call for someone to take you,” And the smaller omega turned to retake his post at the crown of the wall -- Arthur grabbed his arm.

“Please, Kiku.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t go to see him alone.  I just -- I need --”

Kiku nodded, but kept his gun close.  “Of course.”

Word was sent for Ivan to come by way of a small omega named Raivis, who offered to meet them on the second story balcony overlooking the courtyard -- Arthur might be pregnant and in need of help navigating such trying things as the stairs, but then he was not the one on his deathbed.  Raivis, in spite of his size, supported all of Ivan’s weight even as he stumbled out of his room at the end of the way and gasped out that they could sit at the top of the stairs.

It just so happened to be in front of Arthur’s old room, untouched as if it had been somehow valuable in the messy state he’d left it in; the floral curtains he had proudly sewn himself still drifted in the breeze, yellowed only slightly from smoke.

Arthur looked around for chairs, but found that the only evidence of any was the scene of mangled wooden legs sticking out from what used to be a wall -- a failed fortification from the time he was absent. “You don’t have anywhere to sit,” The pregnant omega looked down at the vast horizon of his belly and realized that the ground beneath was a long way down.

With Kiku’s arm beneath the swell of his back, Arthur sat, crosslegged and leaning against his old door.  Ivan put his arms over his chest, apparently not minding that the carefully-bandaged hole in it oozed blood onto his arms as a result.  He stayed standing.  “We have given up many things,” he snapped, “Including luxury.”

“I’ve lost a lot of things as well,” Arthur sniffed, “But the worst one by far was my freedom -- that one was a _bitch_.”

“You sound American.”

As if he had the right to talk like that, as some Russian bastard lost in an English wasteland.  Arthur sneered, “My _mate_ is American.”

“Is he your mate, or your master?”

“I chose him.”

“He is the one commanding the troops,” Interjected Kiku.  “Outside the fort.”

“You may recall that they’ve refused to fire a single shot on you, even though you’ve killed several of their soldiers.”

Ivan shrugged, “It is not my fault they are cowards.”

If Arthur could have, he would have stood; but his recently-added weight instead had him scrambling to stand, grasping for purchase on ancient stone bricks that could only help him so very little.  Hung against the wall half-standing, half sitting, he practically growled at the man who was once his superior.  “ _They_ aren’t the ones hiding away in a rabbit hole, Ivan.”

Ivan inhaled, and when he breathed out again it wasn’t anger occupying the particles that hung in the humid air, but a strained and quiet resignation.  “It is everyone for themselves outside of these walls.” Arthur opened his mouth to say something, but Ivan used what little strength he had to raise his hand and quiet him.  “... But you seem to have done well with the cards you were dealt, so, for that I am proud.”

“Do you think I care if you’re proud?” Arthur scrambled to finally stand with his weight fully on his own two feet -- Ivan stayed where he was, “Maybe I did, when I was younger --”

“What has changed?” A violet gaze looked him over, up and down, “Other than the one… obvious thing.”

“The opinion of a fool doesn’t matter to me any more,” Arthur spat, and though the weight of his words was finally off his shoulders he still had to lean back just to stand.  “You wanted to create a place where there was no opposition and no danger, because you’re too weak to face it when it comes.” Over his voice came the sound of the crackling coals that used to be the walls of Fort Perseverance, so he had to speak ever louder, “This is what happens when you let fear control you.”

If the circumstances were different Ivan might have said something different.  Had he not been injured, had he not seen the life flowing out of him for days yet he might have sneered and screamed and kicked the young omega out -- the place was a charred corpse, but it was still home and it was still his.  Ivan only laughed, and Arthur tried not to sneer, tried to keep his role as the neutral negotiator. “You learned a lot out there, didn’t you?”

“I --” Arthur raised an eyebrow when the Ivan from the old days didn’t leap out to grab him, “I didn’t do it alone.”

“I am impressed, nevertheless.”

“What you mean to say is… you’re sorry.”

Ivan grumbled as if he were gargling blood, “I am not sorry for my actions.  We needed bullets, and I would have done the same if it were anyone else.” At the tears welling up in Arthur’s eyes, he bit his lip, “I am sorry it had to be you.”

“But we’ve always had plenty of bullets,”

“Not _always_ ; we had been running low for months.  I hoped for some miracle to grant us ammunition, but -- nothing comes without a price, I guess.”

Arthur really _did_ sneer then.  “And what price have you paid?”

Ivan sighed and ran his hand across the warm stickiness of blood on his bandage, “It will be collected soon.” 

Like a coin hitting the ground in a dead-silent room, the sound of metal clanging in the courtyard broke whatever strange quiet they had found and made everyone jump.  Francis, hands raised just as Arthur’s had been, stood in the courtyard, greeted only by trembling stares.  Ivan turned to him, dug his nails into the castle stone that was his alone and roared a bear’s roar, “No alphas allowed!”

Francis’ hands remained up, “I’m not -- listen, I’m here for Arthur.”

With Kiku’s panicked help Arthur stumbled to the edge of the balcony -- just in time to see Ivan snatch the watch duty rifle leaned against it, hold it to his shoulder and take brief aim.  “I said no alphas!”

For the first time in his life Arthur was able to match the enormous omega’s weight.  He heard his shoes scrape against the ancient rock floor, felt Kiku barely get a hold of the back of his shirt to stop him before he narrowly lost his grip -- Arthur heard the air whistling in his ears as he grabbed a handful of Ivan’s shirt, balled it in his palms and shoved him.

The sheer force made Arthur lean against the wall with breath that was suddenly much harder to catch.  Ivan stumbled and lost his footing, the aim of his gun turning up and away from its previously perfect shot.  The great omega locked eyes with him and held his violet stare for a moment.  Arthur had seen that panicked look only once, the night Victoria lay before them both in stiff finality while they talked about what their lives would be like without her.  That night he looked like he stood less of a chance than the orphan that helped him dig a hole for his own mother --

It all took just long enough for one shot to fire, and for Ivan to hit the ground with a hideous thud.

Arthur stood listening to the sound of his own heart pounding, and watched him die.


	14. Chapter 14

He was breathing deep, as instructed -- but Arthur was also starting to believe it didn’t make any difference.  “Regardless of what you may think,” His mind was dizzy and lost, “I really don’t need to be _told_ to push.”  


Wet.  Everything was a mess, Arthur included.  It was providence that his water would break standing outside the room that was once his, where the only doctor in the world he would let deliver his baby stood by his side.  Neither of them paused to mourn; there was simply too much to do to sit and weep over what was left of Ivan.

The first words he heard from Alfred in a post-Ivan world were “ _Oh my God_ ,” yelped more than said.  He fell to his knees at Arthur’s bedside, threw one arm over his chest and one behind his head (how utterly dramatic) and looked almost ready to cry. “How are you, how’s the baby? Are you hurt? Who the hell is that outside?” 

Kiku ran his hands under a stream of vodka (Ivan’s, maybe he would have been honored to be a part of the ceremony) and kept his mouth in a firm line.  “Shall he be in the room or out?”

“I wanna be in here,” Alfred said with a huff, “Absolutely.”

“With all due respect, I was not asking you,” Kiku bowed his head down, ran a hand that was cold with alcohol over Arthur’s stomach.  “Does it hurt?”

“No, but if Ivan isn’t going to be needing that vodka any more, I could certainly take a drink now.”

“Perhaps in the old days,” Kiku’s mouth stayed a frown, but his eyes lit up a little like they wanted to smile.  Arthur took that as a victory.

“Come on -- for liquid courage?”

“If he wants some of that stuff, give it to him.” Alfred picked a strange time to start acting his rank, and for the first time he actually sounded like a lord or a prince or -- whatever he was.  Sadly for him, that was useless in a fort full of omegas who had never known an alpha ruler, and the awe Arthur was momentarily struck with was lost on Kiku.

“You will not be needing any to complete your duty, Arthur.” He turned to Alfred with a stern look, “And I would like for you to leave." 

Well, at least it was a big behavioral leap for Kiku.

Regardless, that was definitely not the last time Alfred was going to refuse to shut up in the name of reason.  The doctor was a collected person, but the at the telltale twitching of his mouth Arthur grabbed Alfred's arm and attention.  Another wave of shivering pressure beat down on him, and through grit teeth he spat, "Go outside.  Next time I do this, you can be here, alright?"

There was a moment of stale quiet in which only two of the three people in the room knew just what he was talking about.  When he thought no one was looking, Kiku rolled his eyes a little and returned to sterilizing his tools.

Alfred gasped and smiled a bright smile that Arthur feared might become permanent.  "The _next_ one?"

“Yes, the _next_ one,” Arthur groaned, “Now go on.”

Confused and nerve-wracked alphas and omegas dared to enter the fort in tightly-packed little groups, find shelter within its sunken walls and take some well deserved rest.  A few noticed Alfred, still in his armor, listening intently to whatever was happening inside a rickety old room, and murmured amongst themselves.  Francis leaned on the wall beside his prince, looking over at the still-wet blood where the fort's former ruler had fallen with a quirked smile. "They kicked you out?"

"These guys must _really_ hate alphas," Alfred grumbled, "It's my kid too, don’t they know that?"

Feliks, one of the only people within miles who could actually empathize with Alfred’s plight, tapped him on the shoulder and bit back his sarcasm -- for his prince’s sake as well as his mate’s blood pressure.  “He’s doing all the work, so do what he says and don’t complain, okay?” Toris sighed, grateful.

They heard the sound of the wooden bed frame inside creaking as Arthur strained to roll over.  Alfred frowned, “But what if he needs me?”

Feliks smiled, “He won’t.”

For as long as there had been alphas and omegas and babies to be born of them, the tradition was unspoken but the same: in dignified near-solitude the omega hid from sight (but not from sound) and a crowd appeared outside in anxious anticipation.  The room with the fluttering floral curtain became a hubbub of occasional whispers and more-than-occasional hushes.  With every swell and ebb of moans that turned into gasps that turned into hushed little screams the audience too swayed in to listen, and out to bite their lips in sympathetic pain.

If Arthur had known there was an audience at all, he would not have appeased them with kicking up such a fuss.  But then it was too late; the sounds from him went quiet, and the throng of faces turned from anguished to smiling when the cries of a newborn erupted from the room -- an unfamiliar sound to most of them.

And nothing on heaven or earth could keep Alfred from busting down the door.  "It's an omega," Kiku said with a prepared bow, and passed the little bundle of irony over to its father.  At some point previously it had occurred to Alfred that Arthur may want to be the first one to hold it (him, Alfred noted with a quick glance down), but when those blue eyes stared up at him... What was he to do?

Never put him down.   _Ever_.

Totally spent, Arthur laid his head against the pillow and heaved a great sigh -- he had not so much as seen his son, but Alfred was already deeply in love.  "You caused a lot of trouble just getting here, little guy," and he tickled the still-wet pot belly until he had giggled enough.

The sole back window seemed like the perfect place to introduce the world outside to their little one.  "That's one gorgeous view, huh?"

“I always wanted it to face the ocean,” Arthur yawned.  On a day that was quickly becoming the perfect kind of bright and windswept one to spend on the beach, the smell of ocean spray could fill the room -- and quickly it did.  The baby gurgled at the tiny droplets making shimmering freckles on his face.

Carried away by seabreeze, the smoke was gone and gave way to sunlight; instead of squinting the little omega stared out into the blue, enthralled with something in the distance.

Alfred gasped.  "Arthur, you've _got_ to come see this.  There's dolphins in the bay!"

 _End_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, everyone!! I'm so happy to finally have this project finished. :) Extras will be posted sometime soonish, so stay tuned, or follow my writing tumblr LadySavrola.tumblr.com!


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